Peck's Bad Boy in an airship

by George W. Peck

I felt that we had got among Americans again, because all a German needs to be an American is to be able to talk a little broken English. The French are all right in their way, but they are too polite. If a Frenchman wants to order you out of his place he is so polite about it that you think he wants you to stay there always and be at home.

If a German wants you to get out he says “Rouse” in a hoarse voice, and if you don’t rouse he gives you a swift kick in the pants and you instinctively catch on to the fact that you are due some other place.

The Germans that are with us on the animal hunt in South Africa all speak English, and while at the Hagenbach farm Pa convinced everybody that he was the bravest animal man in the world, “cause he would go up to any cage where the animals had been tamed and act as free with them as though he did not know fear,” and he went around in his shirt sleeves the way he used to in the circus, and would pat a lion on the head, and if the animal growled Pa would scowl at him and make the lion believe Pa was king of beasts.

Pa has found that putting on a pair of automobile goggles and getting down on his hands and knees and crawling towards the animal in captivity frightens the animal into a fit, but I guess when he tries that stunt on wild animals on the veldt of Africa he will find it does not work so well.

I expect to have to bring Pa back the way they transport canned sausage, after a few wild lions and tigers and hippopotamuses have used him for a cud to chew on.

Before we took the steamer for South Africa I had the first serious talk with Pa that I have had since I joined him in Paris. I said, “Pa, don’t you think this idea of chasing wild animals in Africa with an airship is going to be a sort of a dangerous proposition?” and Pa began to look brave, and he said, “Hennery, this is an age of progress, and we have to get out of the rut, and catch up with the procession and lead it. The old way of capturing wild animals by enticing them into baited traps and letting them touch a spring and imprison themselves is about as dangerous as catching mice in a wire trap with a piece of cheese for bait.

“Of course, we shall take along all of the traps and things usually used for that purpose, because roping animals from an airship is only an experiment, and we want to be on the safe side, but if the airship proves a success I will be considered the pioneer in airship wild animal capturing, and all animal men will bow down to your Pa, see, and my fortune will be made. We will get into the animal country and locate a few lions and tigers, first, and sail over their lairs in the jungle, and while I hold the steering apparatus our cowboys will sit on the bamboo rails of the ship and throw the rope over their necks, and when they find we have got them where the hair is short they will lie down and bleat like a calf, and when we dismount and go up to them to tie their legs they will be so tame they will eat out of your hand.

“I have got it all figured out in my mind and I don’t want you or anybody else to butt in with any discouraging talk, for I won’t have it.”

“But suppose the airship gets caught in a tree?” I said to Pa. “Well, then, we will tie up and catch baboons,” said Pa. “Everything goes with your Pa, Hennery.”

Well, it was like moving a circus to get the stuff loaded for South Africa, as we had more than fifty cages to put animals in to bring home, and tents and food enough for an arctic expedition, and over two hundred men, and several tame lionesses and female tigers to use for decoys, and some elephants for Judases to rope in the wild animals, and when we got started it was more than a week before we struck the coast of Africa, and all there was to do on the trip was to play poker and practice on the tame animals.